Announcements

Google has been phasing out Google Talk for the past year and replacing with Google Hangouts. Google Hangouts provides all the chat capabilities you were used to with Google Talk but also adds in video conferencing, making and receiving phone calls, sending SMS texts and more. You may have already seen and started using Google Hangouts instead of Google Talk/Chat when working in your Smoogle mail without realizing it.

As of March 1st, Google finally turned off being able to use the standalone Google Talk client for Windows and Mac. You can use the new Google Hangouts application instead, whether on your computer, or smartphone or tablet, however if you liked having a separate stand alone client there are still other options such as Pidgin although they are not supported by Google. Here’s a guide for setting up Pidgin to work with Google.

To learn more about using Google Hangouts and all it’s new features such as video conferencing, making phone calls, sending SMS texts, click here.

The Division of Information Technology has posted the following information regarding a scheduled outage of many University IT services:

Starting at 7 a.m. on Saturday, December 27, 2014 and ending by 7 a.m. on Sunday, December 28, 2014, there will be an outage of many university IT services. During the outage, the Division of IT will perform an annual disasterrecovery test, as required by the State Office of Legislative Audits.

The test will result in a significant outage of IT systems and services. However, the following systems will NOT be impacted and will remain in service during the testing:

— Data (including wireless) and voice network and Internet access from campus locations — Exchange email and calendar system serving faculty, staff, and many grad students — TERPmail student email — University website (however, some services accessed via the website will not be working) — Systems operating out of college and department IT facilities — University Directory login services for systems operating out of college and department IT facilities

If you have any questions, please contact the Help Desk at 301.405.1500.

We appreciate your patience and cooperation as we strive to provide safe and effective campus computer services.

As reported yesterday evening, the network connectivity issues in Van Munching Hall have been fixed. The failed Division of IT network switch has been routed around and knock on effects remediated.

Smith IT finished restoring impacted services last night and normal service has been resumed. If you experience any IT issues this morning please make sure that you have restarted your computer from yesterday and if the issue still persists please contact the Smith IT Service Desk on 301 405 2269 or via helpme@rhsmith.umd.edu so we can investigate further.

We will be continuing our dialogue with the Division of IT to investigate the underlying cause of the failure in their redundant networking infrastructure, so as to help to prevent similar issues in the future.

New Equipment in 12 VMH Classrooms

Come try it out at one of the info sessions planned for this summer. We’ll show you the New Crestron system, A/V Operation, AirMedia, and Epson Brightlink projectors. Each session will be held on Friday from 2pm until 3pm in the following locations:

If you feel that individual training will assist your needs better, we request that you submit a ticket to helpme@rhsmith.umd.edu. Within your request please advise your available times so that we can assign an available staff member for your training.

Changes on how you access your Smoogle account beginning Wednesdsay May 28th, 2014

Google has been updating it’s authentication methods to allow for new safety features such as two-factor authentication. A side-effect of that has required us to change how you access your Smoogle account, so starting Wednesday May 28th you will access your Smoogle account using your Smith email address as the username and a separate Google password. You will no longer use your University Directory ID.

On or before the change over date of Wednesday May 28th you will need to set a Google password on your account, by going to http://reset.rhsmith.umd.edu and logging in with your University Directory ID and password. You will then be prompted to set your new Google password. Starting Wednesday May 28th you log in to your Smoogle account with your full Smith email address and Google password whether using a web browser or mobile phone or tablet.

We will be delivering a flyer to all the office’s at VMH with more detailed instructions over the next week and will send further reminders via email with the flier attached. We apologize for the inconvenience that the timing and changes of this may cause. You can find more detailed information on these changes and what impact they have at smoogle.rhsmith.umd.edu/changes.

Microsoft has officially released Microsoft Office for iOS and Android.

There are two versions, depending on your device. If it’s not an iPad, you can get Office Mobile. If it is an iPad, you can get Office for iPad. Both are versions free* and available from the App Store/Google Play. Either version has Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint available up for grabs. The Office Mobile has all apps together in one app download, while with Office for iPad, all three will need to be downloaded separately.

Either version needs at least iOS 7 (if you’re stuck on iOS6, get upgrading!) and at least Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) to work.

*Caveat: it’s absolutely free if you are using an iPhone or Android (read: no Office 365 subscription needed), however for the iPad version, the app is still free but you need an Office 365 subscription in order to edit documents. Basically the app is read-only – but we can already do that out of iOS/Android anyways – until you get a subscription. (And, no, Office 2013 from Terpware doesn’t include an Office 365 subscription.)

This is a notice to advise you that the Operating System Windows XP will no longer be supported in any way. Below is the statement sent out by Microsoft advising End of Support. If you have a system currently that is running XP the Service Desk will be upgrading it to Windows 7 Enterprise. To verify what operating system you have on your system you can “Right” click “Computer“, when the menu appears click “Properties” the version of the OS will be listed in the properties window.

If you find that you do have Windows XP, send an email to helpme@rhsmith.umd.edu and a ticket will be created so that we may schedule your upgrade to Windows 7 Enterprise.

From Microsoft:Windows XP End of Support

After April 8, 2014, technical assistance for Windows XP will no longer be available, including automatic updates that help protect your PC. Microsoft will also stop providing Microsoft Security Essentials (Virus Protection) for download on Windows XP on this date. (If you already have Microsoft Security Essentials installed, you will continue to receive antimalware signature updates for a limited time, but this does not mean that your PC will be secure because Microsoft will no longer be providing security updates to help protect your PC.)

If you continue to use Windows XP after support ends, your computer will still work but it might become more vulnerable to security risks and viruses. Also, as more software and hardware manufacturers continue to optimize for more recent versions of Windows, you can expect to encounter greater numbers of apps and devices that do not work with Windows XP.

The Learning Mastery Gradebook helps instructors and admins assess the outcomes that are being used in Canvas courses. Located as part of the regular Gradebook, the Learning Mastery Gradebook provides an overview of student learning based on standards rather than grades via a color-coded graph chart and score levels.

The Learning Mastery Gradebook is a course-level option and can be enabled by instructors on a course-to-course basis. If an instructor doesn’t use Learning Outcomes in the course, this feature will not have any impact on the Gradebook interface.

More details about the Learning Mastery Gradebook – http://guides.instructure.com/s/2204/m/4152/l/179359-how-do-i-use-the-learning-mastery-gradebook

The computer upgrades in VMH classrooms are now complete. They should improve performance and speed of many applications that were not functioning well enough. You will log in the same way. We’ve built the software image based on current requests, but if we missed anything, please let us know right away by emailing helpme@rhsmith.umd.edu.

Baltimore classrooms will be upgraded with the same equipment in the very near future as well.

Co-sponsored by the Academy for Excellence in Teaching and Learning and the Center for Teaching Excellence

Campus faculty discuss what “flipping and blending” is all about, how some are using it in their classrooms, and who can help you “flip or blend” your classes.

New teaching and learning tools are constantly being developed and tested. The latest trend is flipped or blended classrooms. To flip or blend – the acrobatics of teaching with technology is a beginning of a conversation with campus faculty who have flipped and/or blended their courses, and who will share their experience and insights into the dos and don’ts of flipping and blending.

Presenters: Dr. Marcio Oliveira, School of Public Health

Dr. Mel Scullen, School of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures

Dr. Sarah Balcom, Department of Animal and Avian Sciences

Cinthya Ippoliti, Libraries

Where: 6137 McKeldin Library

When: Thursday, February 27th

Time: 12-1:30

Please R.S.V.P. at cte.umd.edu/teaching/AETL/flipblend.html

Co-sponsored by the Academy for Excellence in Teaching and Learning and the Center for Teaching Excellence